Benoît Fourneyron Signed autograph letter Turbines & Cockerill Paris 1837

  
Autograph letter signed to Mr. Jérémie Risler, regarding his turbines, 1837.

Autograph letter signed by Benoît Fourneyron.

Dated March 20, 1837, in Paris. Written in black ink on a double sheet of bluish laid paper, bearing a postal mark from March 20, 1837 and an arrival mark from March 22, 1837 in Mulhouse. Fourneyron, inventor of the hydraulic turbine, discusses the international spread of his machines and his contractual relations with several European manufacturers, notably Cockerill. Risler,

I am returning from Belgium...

The proposal you make to me to apply my turbines abroad is all the more pleasing to me because it is the best proof you can give me of the support your firm gives to my machines. For you must surely suppose that I may have been informed of the poor results they have produced, notably in Herford, Westphalia, with my wheels.

The strength of my patent lies less in the title secured for me in France than in the certainty of complete success. I have no patent in Germany, Italy, Belgium, etc...

I have just made arrangements with Mr. Cockerill, owner of the works at Seraing near Liège, for the management of turbine construction for various countries in his own workshops.

I need to know whether your firm intends to guarantee me that no turbine will leave its workshops, even for export, unless it is built according to my plans and instructions, for which I would be paid on the basis of terms agreed between us, or whether this is simply an isolated matter.

Please be kind enough to reply with the same frankness you will find in my letter, and believe me meanwhile, yours devotedly.

Handwritten note by Risler at the end of the letter: Replied? On the 25th he told him to submit his prices and rates and bonus to Mulhouse.

A major letter for the history of industrial mechanics and the European spread of the Fourneyron turbine, here directly mentioning John Cockerill and the Seraing workshops, then among the most advanced in Europe.

Dimensions: 20.6 x 26.2 cm.

Condition: Traces of a stub on the back of the letter. See photos and description for more details. Number of pages: 2 pages.

Benoît Fourneyron, born on November 1, 1802 in Saint-Étienne and died on July 8, 1867 in Paris, was a French inventor and industrialist best known for inventing the hydraulic turbine and the penstock.

John Cockerill was a Belgian-British industrialist who emigrated in 1797 to the territory of present-day Belgium with his father William Cockerill.

The latter played a decisive role in the mechanization of the European textile wool industry, which lagged behind the same industry in England.

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